Journalists behaving very badly

Kathy Tomlinson is a credit to the CBC and to journalism. That was obvious long before reports emerged that her erstwhile colleague — the lavishly paid corporate gun-for-rent Amanda Lang — made thinly-disguised attempts to scuttle Tomlinson’s exposés concerning the exploitive racket otherwise known as the Temporary Foreign Workers program — which hit the parochial world of Canadian media like a cluster bomb.

Quietly, methodically, Tomlinson and the CBC’s tiny Go Public team of investigative journalists have broken big, important stories about how powerful people and institutions, in and outside government, have stepped on people who lack the means to fight back. Tomlinson, ably assisted by her indefatigable producer, Enza Uda, tips the scales in favour of the powerless — which is what good journalism is supposed to do.

She reminds me of another fearless shit-disturber — the incomparable Dale Goldhawk. Dale and I shared office space years ago at CTV National News. I loved to listen to him in full flight, pinning down some slippery bureaucrat, charlatan or crook in phone interviews. He papered the walls of his office with letters from grateful Canadians thanking him for his help. Dale never forgot who he was working for, and those letters meant more to him than anything.

But reporters who fearlessly seek the truth always run a risk, especially when they cross the rich and powerful. That’s what Dale learned when a former newspaper editor turned clueless television VP decided, absurdly, that the irascible muckraker’s egalitarian brand of journalism was no longer welcome on a supposedly sober national newscast. Dale Goldhawk was talented and popular — but that couldn’t save him from being kicked out the door.

Which is why I worry about Kathy Tomlinson. She’s smart and good at her job — but I fear that the petty, vindictive mandarins who run CBC News today eventually will decide she’s a troublesome liability since she has been thrust reluctantly into an unseemly public controversy not of her making. I fear that she’ll be found guilty of violating the overriding commandment of news bureaucrats everywhere — Thou shalt not soil the nest.

All the bluster emanating from the CBC’s besieged executive offices can’t alter the fact that Amanda Lang and company still believe it’s okey dokey for journalists to take cash — directly or indirectly — from big, influential companies on which those same journalists are supposed to report.

Look, if anyone merits being booted from our TV screens for the good of journalism, it’s Lang and Roberts. Think about it. Roberts has admitted that he toiled at, and held an equity stake in, the public relations firm Buzz PR, while he was reportedly being “groomed” to be the “centerpiece” of Global News.

Global deserves a little credit, I guess, for promptly suspending Roberts — who is perhaps best known for co-hosting Toronto’s Santa Claus parade — after it discovered their anchorman’s ethical transgressions, which included interviewing his own PR clients on Global. If ever there were a blatant firing offence, Roberts has certainly committed it.

Still, Roberts was probably grateful that Canadaland’s intrepid reporter, Sean Craig, blew his journalistic malfeasance off the front page by giving a detailed and damning blow-by-blow account of how Lang allegedly tried (unsuccessfully) to thwart the CBC from continuing to pursue the TFW stories targeting RBC while, at the same time, accepting speaking fees from several events where the bank was one of the major sponsors. (Later, Craig also reported that Lang was linked romantically to a RBC board member.)

Not surprisingly, Lang and her bosses promptly and loudly went on the counter-attack, telling a few handpicked reporters that she never attempted to kill the story, undercut Tomlinson’s reportage or take cash directly from RBC.

Nope. According to chief CBC News editor Jennifer McGuire, Lang’s curious maneuvers in and outside the CBC extolling the virtues of the RBC’s exploitation of the TFW program while Tomlinson was doggedly exposing its egregious failings were simply reflective of a “vigorous” editorial disagreement.

All the fatuous, incoherent bluster emanating from the CBC’s besieged executive offices can’t alter the fact that Amanda Lang and company still believe it’s okey dokey for journalists to take cash — directly or indirectly — from big, influential companies on which those same journalists are supposed to report.

To my way of thinking, Roberts and Lang have forfeited the right to call themselves journalists. That job title should be the reserved for the likes of Kathy Tomlinson.

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Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

22 comments on “Journalists behaving very badly”

There are so many journalists behaving badly – being derelict in their duty, at any rate, that it’s hard to single out just one.

One, however, does come to mind, and perhaps it’s the “cockpit” setting in the pic of Roberts. Tom Clark over at CTV has taken to flying politicians around in his personally-piloted airplane. Is it just me, or is that setting (and some of the qs asked in said setting) just a little too intimate, and hence, inappropriate?

The entire tenor of CBC News has been enough for a growing majority to begin further criticism and seeking more astute journalism elsewhere, even if it means Al Jazeera for Middle East coverage and docs as well as alternative/lesser known newsletters I see offered as links in criticisms made on CBC News blog. Frustration at the level of timidity whenever party policies were being semi dealt with, has become standard fair, to the point where opinions are asking for either a clean sweep of all known ‘quasi-wannabes’ with ethical bent tendencies or simply reduce CBC to a Canadian documentary channel. Maybe hoping such a drastic change might re-create a more journalistic foundation the kind that led to segments such as ‘This Hour Has Seven Days’.

Marg – I agree with much of what you say but will not give up on beloved, Con-hobbled CBC. Let them know – get in touch with them and make your questions/concerns/complaints known. Offer suggestions, if need be. Abandoning them is precisely what Harper wants to see happen.

For quite a few years I felt and said exactly what you have but the damage done by all trying to make them, or quite frankly anyone understand that their complicit timidity with every one conservative or corporate has enabled the likes of Harper to placate issues that are now hurting people and our ability to soon even develop a growing domestic economy. The bailouts and what that says about corporations over-running of our laws, even more so with the ISDS investor -state dispute settlement clause meant to guarantee corporate profits, by quite literally undermining our ability to continue as a functioning democratic country (maybe with just a PR slogan of democracy ).
Our neighbors to the south of us are facing some very turbulent times as their government has been so corrupted, it no longer functions except to its now redefined corporate dictates. We would not see the legalized use of secrecy to the degree we have, if the very means to correct abusive power were not already well in-hand by those controlling Ottawa. Even our opposition parties have behaved scared in speaking against many obvious abuses.
The same copy-cat pattern has been going on by Harper for the last two terms and now only because of ineptness at governing and a drastic drop in the Alberta/his/base commodity are some of his incompetents wavering. What enrages me is that all at CBC News and all in Ottawa know exactly what these ISDS clauses in all, now five trade deals, will do to Canada and Canadian’s right to be protected by their Constitution and Charter of Rights. All of these trade agreements are designed to totally undermine our ‘rule of law’ and as you and I have observed not one effort is being made to stop any of them being ratified or even discussed publicly. I could in fact send you approximately 50 newsletters with detailed items on the affects such deals will have, instead I will refer you to bilateral.org for global analysis of trade agreements now in the pipeline. The only org that has been working hard to expose and stop these agreements is the Council of Canadians, which I am a member of and try to help as best I can by bringing this pending crisis out and demanding explanations and actions against them. In short, like the dangers of climate change, time is clearly running out, nothing short of withdrawal of funding could stop these trade agreements or their seizure of overruling our governing laws.(that is why they were done in secret). Please feel free to comment, thank you and take care.

I don’t want to abandon it either. I want it to be reconstructed as a real public broadcaster with real public affairs programs like it used to be.. In the meantime I read the Tyee, the Vancouver Observer which is threatening to become the National Observer, ipolitics, Canadaland, Rabble and the Progressive Bloggers site. The truth is out there. It just needs to be hunted down.

I love the CBC and have always been so proud of it. Their documentaries and exposes have always been great. Harper and his minions cannot handle the truth in any form. Everything has to be a big secret and behind closed doors because they know they are usually doing something sly and underhanded. New government coming in will fix CBC and maybe with a clean sweep of personnel it will even be better.

And we shall see what the next gov’t does to Harper’s policies, if there is a different one. I won’t hold my breath. It hasn’t helped the US to have Obama elected.Politics doesn’t seem to work that way.

The thing that always bothered me most about about the Lang & O’Leary show was that with most of those shallow and usually terrible things, you put people on one side of the spectrum against the other side. Think Crossfire on CNN, or Hannity vs. Colmes on Fox. The sides may not be equally forceful or ideological, but at least the premise is having one side against the other.

With the Lang & O’Leary show, at least O’Leary never posited to be taken as anything but the personification of Scrooge McDuck. But Amanda Lang was positioned to be perceived as the counterpoint to him, and she’s never demonstrated any sign of being anything but a corporate-worshipping shill and suck-up to power masquerading as a journalist, without the power of independent thought to begin with, or without any healthy journalistic skepticism when cavorting with the rich and powerful, having sacrificed it as part of the Stockholm Syndrome when taken in by RBC. Her op-ed at the Globe & Mail defending RBC’s outsourcing and taking advantage of temporary foreign labour was revolting enough to a thinking person even without the disclosure that she was sleeping with an RBC board member. Now the powers that be as far as CBC management have pulled a Harper “circle the wagons” maneuver to defend her, throwing out strawmen like conflating Lang’s pulling in tens of thousands of dollars giving speeches to RBC, whose board member she sleeps with while also giving flattering interviews to RBC management… and saying it’s ridiculous to see a conflict of interest there because of some charities or colleges that RBC sponsors which CBC personalities also speak at where there is no financial or personal interest at stake.

Given that Stephen Harper has now appointed every single member of the CBC’s Board of Directors at this point, we probably shouldn’t be too surprised at the way the CBC’s journalist instincts, ethics and level of accountability have gone lately. And it is a shame, for ethical reporters like Tomlinson who work there. Not surprisingly, it appears the laughable Amanda Lang was the one being groomed to take over for Mansbridge, but not every viewer would be aware that she’s to be laughed at.

I must tip my hat to you Andrew. Previously, I thought you were being a bit harsh on Amanda, but no, you were definitely right on this. She is essentially an American newscaster, bought and paid for, at this point.

Kudos to you for following this through. Last night, I purposefully changed the channel immediately after Power and Politics to avoid any perception of supporting this paid-for shill of a “correspondent”. She has absolutely no credibility left after these revelations. That the CBC so adamantly supports their hosts taking paid corporate speaking gigs is the real issue, it seems, though. What a sketchy organization it has become. McGuire and company should be (but we know they aren’t) ashamed of themselves.

My CBC today: “…Amanda Lang and company still believe it’s okey dokey for journalists to
take cash — directly or indirectly — from big, influential companies on
which those same journalists are supposed to report….”

I’ve always mistrusted that Lang woman. Now I know why. I don’t watch her show and never have. Certainly, she deserves to be fired for this crap. CBC is in big trouble. The whole place needs to be swept clean. It’s time somebody does so.